Taxes and US Oil Production: Evidence from California and the Windfall Profit Tax

Nirupama L. Rao

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2018, vol. 10, issue 4, 268-301

Abstract: The recent boom in U.S. oil production has prompted debates on levying new taxes on oil. This paper uses new well-level production data and price variation from federal oil taxes and price controls to assess how taxes affected production. After-tax price elasticity estimates range between 0.295 (0.038) and 0.371 (0.025). Response along the shut-in margin is minimal. There is no evidence of spatial shifting of production to minimize tax liabilities. Taken together the results suggest that taxes reduced domestic production in the 1980s, and the response largely came from wells that continued to pump oil, but at a reduced rate.

JEL-codes: H25 H32 L71 L78 Q35 Q38 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
Note: DOI: 10.1257/pol.20140483
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pol.20140483 (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/content/file?id=8307 (application/zip)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... Yw0D7jcmbQjD8wzFKOBu (application/pdf)
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrie ... wkfZxfBT-FKdRH7l7vIe (application/zip)
Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aea:aejpol:v:10:y:2018:i:4:p:268-301

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.aeaweb.org/journals/subscriptions

Access Statistics for this article

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy is currently edited by Matthew Shapiro

More articles in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy from American Economic Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michael P. Albert ().